Improvement in apparatus for pressing hats



UNTTnO STATES PATeNT OFFTcn,

MONROE' MORSE, OF FRANKLIN, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO HIMSEIiF AND AARON H. MORSE, OF SAME PLAGE.

IMPROVEMENT iN APPARATUS FOR PRESSING HATS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 53,0S3, dated March 6, 1866.

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, MONROE MORSE, of Franklin, in the county of Norfolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improved Machine Or Improvement in Machinery for Pressing Straw Hats or Bonnets, or other Articles of Like Character 5 and I do hereby declare the same to be fully described in the following specification and represented in the accompanying drawings, ot' which- Fignre l is a vertical section, and Fig. 2 a rear elevation, ot' the machine.

My invention is an improvement on that described in the United States Patent No. 20,837, granted July 6, 1858, to Hiram E. West; and therefore l do not claim as my invention the principle oi' such patented machine.

On account ot' the great length of time required to operate vthe machine when made as exhibited in the specification of the said West, such machine has not been deemed of much practical Value, and other machines since invented have taken its place.

Instead of employing a pump to inflate or operate the iexile presser, I make use ot' a chamber provided with a flexile head, aseries of circular sectors, and a mechanism for moving such sectors.

In the drawings, A represents the mold into which the hat is to be passed for being shaped, such mold having applied to it, when in use, a means ot' heating it.

B is the iiexile pressen'which is an elastic sheet of vulcanized rubber or other proper water-proof material, covering a block or presser, O, and being secured thereto by an annulus, D, and sundry screw-bolts aa a a,

provided with nuts I) b b b. There is a chamber, c, in the block G, and there is also one or more passages, d, leading out of such chamber and through the block and to the exile presser B.

There is an elastic sheet or head, D', to the chamber c, and in the rear of such head, and against it, there is arranged a series of sectors, E E, held in place by a cap-ring, F, and a grooved cylinder, G, which are disposed concentrically and with respect to the sectors, in manner as shown inthe drawings, the ring F being confined to the block C by the screwbolts t et (t a. l

A screw, H, screwed into an arched bracket, I fastened to the ring F, should be so connected with the cylinder G that while the screw may be revolved in either direction it shall move the cylinder in the direction of its axis, and so as to move the sectors E E, the ring F and the cylinder G being so made as to allow of such movement of the sectors. When the said sectors are moved against the elastic head Dl they will force it out into the space or chamber o, so as to expel from such chamber and through the passage or passages d and against the iiexile presser B a'portion ot" the liquid which may be in the said chamber, it being understood that such chamber is to be tilled with liquid.

In using the machine a hat or bonnet to be pressed is to be put on the exile presser covering the projecting part of the block C, after which the said part of the block C and the iiexile presser and the hat on them are to be introduced into the pressing-cavity ofthe mold, and the mold should be locked to the block C. This having been done, we have only to turn the screw H so as to force the block C toward the chamber c and the sectors against the elastic head D until the iiexile presser may have been intlated or stretched within the hat in various directions sufficiently to press it completely against the molding-surface.

I have contemplated the construction of the portion O, in whole or in part, ot' an elastic materialsuch as a composition of glue and molasses, for instance, to rest directly against the tiexile presser, and to be subject to being so moved by the series of sectors when they are pressed inward upon it as to force out the tlexile presser in. a manner to canse it to perform its office of crowding the hat into the mold.

I also contemplate the use of a lexile presser made in the form of a block, and of india` rubber or other elastic material capable of being crowded forward by the sectors, and so as to be driven into the mold.

All these changes are substitutions for the chamber containing a liquid and operating with the exile presser vand the series of screw H, as applied to the ehambered block C 1 sectors, and the mechanism for moving such of the ilexile presser B, substantially in manseetors. ner |(ind so as to operate as specified.

Y What I claim as my invention or improvementis MONROE MORSE.

The construction and arrangement of the Witnesses: l elast-ie head D', the series of sectors E, the F. P. HALE, Jr., s grooved cylinder D, or its equivalent, and the FREDERICK CURTIS. 

